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KEY ACTIVITIES
Community Outreach Members (COMs)
COMs are refugee volunteers who provide invaluable support to their communities raising awareness on a variety of subjects through group sessions and door to door visits. COMs provide information relevant to refugees’ daily lives including access to services, cyclone and monsoon preparedness, and key protection risks such as child marriage, among many others. These volunteers are also trained to identify people with specific needs and refer them to the relevant services. During the COVID-19 and cholera vaccination campaigns, COMs accompanied vulnerable individuals to their appointments and volunteered at the vaccination sites. COMs also facilitate projects across camps which engage communities to respond to shared concerns and include constructive activities, such as organizing literacy classes for adults, adolescent chess clubs, and handicraft skills workshops for women. COMs are conducting activities in 27 camps
Elected Community Representation
Community representatives facilitate block level meetings to identify community concerns and raise them at camp coordination meetings and with humanitarian partners operating in the camps. Community representatives conduct awareness sessions on various topics including child marriage, violence in the home, and community empowerment. They facilitate the resolution of small-scale communal disputes via mediation sessions. Through the formation of radio listening groups, block representatives raise awareness among the community on important protection related issues. The elected community representation system functions across four camps.
Community Groups
Female and male adult and youth community groups organize discussions in their communities to identify needs and gaps, and plan service projects to address them. UNHCR and partners support the groups to carry out projects identified and prioritized by the community. The service projects range from small scale infrastructure repairs to handwashing campaigns and distribution of handicrafts. The Community Groups programme currently function in 31 camps.
Communication with Communities
The Information Service Centres are facilities in the camps where refugees can go to receive accurate information, as well as provide feedback and share concerns on services. The Interactive Voice Response system sends pre-recorded audio messages as phone calls in Rohingya language on topics such as COVID-19 prevention and response, and monsoon, cyclone and flood preparedness.
Religious engagement
UNHCR and partners work closely with imams and female religious teachers to engage them in the humanitarian response.
Imams and female religious teachers conduct awareness sessions on prevention of child marriage, health, monsoon and cyclone preparedness, peaceful coexistence, and other protection issues across 33 camps.
Gender Equality UNHCR co-chairs the Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group (GiHA WG) together with UN Women. The GiHA WG provides technical support and advocacy to advance gender equality across the joint response, including cross-sectoral support for use of the Gender with Age Marker (GAM). The GAM is a tool that helps humanitarian actors design and implement inclusive programmes that respond to gender, age, and disability-related differences.
Disability Inclusion
Due to the hilly terrain of the camps in Cox’s Bazar, persons with disabilities and older persons face challenges accessing services.
UNHCR and partners are supporting the refugees with functional and physical rehabilitation assistance, assistive devices such as wheelchairs and walking sticks, and psychosocial support to enable them to independently access health and protection services. Caregivers are supported to reduce the impact and stigma associated with disability and caregiving roles. To ensure that the rights of older people and persons with disabilities are protected and upheld, UNHCR actively participates in the Age and Disability Working Group.